


the walls are closing in (and the colors fade to black)

by DefineNormal



Category: Murdoch Mysteries
Genre: Angst, F/M, post-episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:55:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22912849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DefineNormal/pseuds/DefineNormal
Summary: Post The Killing Dose. Could be canon-compliant if you squint. Probably not, anymore.
Relationships: William Murdoch/Julia Ogden
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

She appeared before him like a vision. Pale, almost hazy around the edges. He blinked a few times to be sure it was Julia Ogden that stood before him, and not another one of his fevered fantasies. Her expression was...complicated. Her fine-boned fingers curled into tight fists, knuckles white. She was breathing quick and shallow, as though she’d run, and her pulse shuddered like a hummingbird beneath the delicate skin of her throat. 

The hospital was quiet at this time of night, but the appearance of the much-discussed Dr Ogden rushing to him unaccompanied was sure to stir up rumors. So Andrew ushered Julia quickly into the empty lounge, busying himself with pouring coffee for the both of them while she composed herself. 

It was inconceivable to him that she would be there before him when, just hours before, she was in a cell. That she wasn’t home with her husband was vexing, but also lit the faintest tinder of hope. Perhaps…

One look at her face as she twisted at the ring on her left hand had him abandoning whatever daydreams he concocted. She was his colleague and, he hoped, friend. She appeared to need the latter far more than the former. 

He pressed a mug between her hands, her steady capable hands, then took a seat across from her. 

They sat in silence, sipping the coffee until it grew tepid. It seemed as though Julia was gathering strength, rehashing a one-sided conversation in her mind, her eyes growing wide and then slamming shut. Her mouth twisted in a kind of agony and Andrew was worried she would weep so he finally spoke.

“Tell me,” He said. 

She did.   


* * *

Julia hadn’t intended to go to the hospital when she left their home. She hadn’t known where, exactly, to run. But she had to move, to shake off the chipped ice words William had so callously dropped at her feet. 

So she had hailed a cab and instructed him to drive aimlessly around the city, discarding possible havens before arriving at the conclusion that she had only one place to go. The Inspector and his wife, Crabtree, even Henry and Ruth...they were William’s people. She was someone distant to them - the woman they accepted because of William, not out of any real connection. The Inspector was kind enough - gentle with her and free with fatherly advice. But she had no illusions that his first loyalty wasn’t to her husband and that was as it should be. It was one of Julia’s most vexing habits - to eschew close relationships as she chased her career. With no family in Toronto, Ruby gallivanting heaven knew where and the two women whom she could unequivocally call friends off living their own lives… it was frighteningly obvious that she had once more unintentionally isolated herself. William was her only safe harbor and, for so long, he was all she required. All she wanted, to be honest. His acceptance and love kept her afloat in the most dire of situations. But the look in his eyes - the distant, judging, hurt shadow in his face - meant she would find no comfort with him that night. And probably not for many to come.

She wasn’t even angry, not really. She was...wounded. She needed comfort and friendship from the one who promised to be hers through good and ill and he had turned her away. So she fled to the one that had rarely disappointed her - had seen her through the darkest moments of her life - to her profession.

She fumbled across Dr Dixon almost accidentally as she blindly tread the halls. She hadn’t expected him to be there so late, hadn’t known he had nightly rounds. Or had she? She stopped dead when she saw him and something heavy and aching in her heart lifted just a little when he took her elbow and ushered her into the lounge. 

Here, at least, she would have a friend,

* * *

The whole sordid tale of the afternoon flooded out of Julia, her voice lifting and tightening with emotion, her eyes flashing when she spoke of unpleasantness between her and her husband. She hadn’t gone into much detail - only that they had quarreled and she had come to the hospital looking to distract herself with work. 

“This was the hardest decision of my career,” Julia was saying, and Andrew refocused on her fraught words. “I told him how much deliberation went into it. That I spoke to Dr, Nurse and you.”

Unbidden, the memory of William Murdoch shouldering past him to usher his wife away rose in Andrew’s mind.

“You told him you spoke to me?”

Julia’s expression was, perhaps comically, confused. “You are my colleague. Of course I would discuss this with you.”

“And he was angry.”

“That I disobeyed his God, yes.”

“Julia-” Her distantly focused eyes drew to his, arch irritation clear, his appeasing tone seeming to trigger a belligerent response. 

They had worked together long enough, now, for him to understand her. At least somewhat. She welcomed criticism as long as it was constructive and always couched in terms of equal to equal. Patronizing was not something Julia Ogden could or would accept, and she would not be well-amused by his take on the situation. That William Murdoch jealously guarded his wife was blatantly obvious to...everyone. However Julia seemed not to notice, or understand such a thing from her husband. She seemed most immune to the effect she had on the men around her. Perhaps it was a learned response to garnering much attention - little of it very good - during her days in university and medical school. Whatever the reason, Andrew had to choose his words carefully. 

“Men--” He began, then closed his mouth. She was watching him with slightly narrowed eyes. “He doesn’t trust me.”

Julia shrugged dismissively, as though this truth was nothing particularly illuminating. “William doesn’t trust many people. I thought, however, that he trusted me.”

She met his gaze levelly, although the vestiges of pain still hung. She continued her assault on her wedding ring, pushing and twisting at it, as though it was uncomfortable. He watched as she once again became ensnared in a conversation only she could hear, her gaze narrowing. 

“You think he’s jealous.” She said suddenly.

“I think you shouldn’t have come here.” Andrew amended.

“To the hospital.”

“Ah. No.” He coughed once. “To me.”

Frustration furrowed her brow. “I didn’t.”

Andrew raised his palms in a sort of defeat. He knew Julia could be a fierce adversary in the professional arena. It should not have been shocking to know she could be equally distressing in personal matters. 

“That’s not how he’ll see it.” 

“Then he’s wrong.”

He must have winced, because she softened. “Andrew-”

“Julia.” He stopped her, laying his palm over her fidgeting hands. “You know how I feel about you. I’ve made quite the fool of myself of late. Your husband - a famed detective - would be hard pressed to miss it.”

“I didn’t tell him, you know.” She drew her hands from beneath his, and his fingers were instantly chilled. 

“It doesn’t matter. He will know.”

“He’ll know what?” They had not heard the door open.

“William--” Julia stood quickly, slipping her hands behind her back as he entire being seemed to draw away from Andrew.

“What don’t I know, Julia?” The detective asked, but his eyes never wavered from Andrew’s. There was thunder in his gaze, and his fists were clenched at his sides. 

“What are you doing here, William? You made it perfectly clear that you have no desire to look at me, much less speak to me.”

“I came to see if I was correct. I prayed to God that I was not.”

“God.” Julia snorted derisively. “And what are you so very correct about, Detective?”

When William finally shifted his stormy gaze to his wife, his expression became one of anguish. He swallowed past the lump in his throat and flexed his fingers. 

“How could you?” William asked, but the words were ragged and so very quiet. 

“Because I couldn’t not.” The detective took a staggering breath at her words. “But if I had to, I would defy your God and do it all over again. And… I’m not sorry.”

It would have been comical were it not so heartbreaking. Julia, still caught up in her own moral dilemma, could not see past it into the torment her husband was currently experiencing. As an outsider, Andrew had a better view and wished only that he could disappear and leave them to this in private. But the detective stood between him and the door. 

“Perhaps I should--” the words had barely left his mouth when the pain exploded in Andrew’s face. A crack, stars and then nothing but blessed blackness.

Julia didn’t have time to react. Before she could even move, the door slammed behind William and Andrew was crumpled on the floor, blood flowing from what was most certainly a broken nose. Half a breath passed before the door opened and a nurse looked in, pale-faced. 

“Dr Ogden…” But Julia was already pushing past her into the hallway. 

“See to Dr Dixon.” Was all Julia said before she followed William out into the night.

* * *

The air snapped, sharp and angry. Julia, rigid and fiery. William, tight with eyes of ice. Brittle exteriors, a crash of wills, an unfathomable well of grievances in the space between them. She had arrived home minutes after him and found him in the front room, staring at her decanter of brandy. When she had asked him, venomously avoiding the implication of William’s fingers curled around a crystal glass, what on earth he’d been thinking, he took a moment to compose himself. He set the glass down carefully before standing with his shoulders back.

It was sheer will that allowed him to harness the toxic anger he felt simmering just below his skin. Suddenly, years of his father’s drunken rages seemed less foreign, as William felt the last of his hurt burned away by the vicious need to hurt her, this woman who could wound him so deeply. Whom he allowed to enter his life and his heart and turn everything upside down. Who sometimes seemed unwilling, unable or incapable of understanding everything he had compromised - willingly - to have her. Who - infuriatingly - would concede absolutely nothing, it seemed, to have  _ him _ . And who, at long last, had finally found him wanting and sought comfort elsewhere. He’d felt her subtle withdrawal from him. Knew her so intimately he knew when she was withholding from him. Knew that eventually, she would come to him and unburden her heart. Eventually. That is, unless...

“Well,” he said at length, his tone distressingly casual, even to himself. “It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve grown tired of marriage.”

He had a single moment of triumph as Julia’s color rose and her fists clenched. He welcomed her rage - anything to incinerate the apathy he’d felt building between them for weeks if not months. And then, all at once she paled. Whatever emotion she had been collecting snuffed out of her, a flame in a vacuum. 

_ Lemniscate _ , William thought nonsensically, even as she reeled, unmoving but growing further with each silent second. 

He longed to pluck back the words, shuffle them into that place where he held the most unthinkable thoughts, the blackest shadows of ugliness, the most damaging of his insecurities. Like Pandora, he watched helplessly as the things he unleashed landed on his wife, acidic and deadly.

Julia’s eyes filled then cleared. There was a flicker of recognition and understanding, as though she’d been waiting for this confession, had known one day he would loose this arrow. She absorbed the blow and turned away. 

William felt his anger bottom out, panic returning him to his senses. The ice in his veins became watery and the stiff anger began to drain from his heart and pool in the pit of his stomach. 

“Julia-“ He tried, but she shook her head. They had promised, once, after they lost the baby. They wouldn’t come to this place again. They couldn’t, because they would never recover. 

Julia took a step out of the room.

Then two. 

Three. 

A soft whirr of the door sliding shut. A faint click. 

And just like that, she was gone.

Again.

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

Julia sat, clear-eyed and pale, in their bedroom. She had no concept of the passing hours and sliding shadows. She was so still she might have been a statue, carved from granite. For truly, she felt as cold and stiff as marble. Weighted down with sorrow, frozen in a loop of hurt she could not escape. Her mind, however, was a riot.

_ It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve grown tired of marriage. _

No. No, it would not be the first time a husband sought to cage her with his jealousy and ask her to be less of herself. It wouldn’t be the first time she was expected to compromise her very self as an act of honor and obedience. Darcy believed she should be otherwise for his ambition. William believed she should be otherwise for his God. 

Was she never to be simply Julia? To follow her path, difficult though it may be, without being expected to change her very nature to appease the men in her life? Would she spend the rest of her marriage in competition with a Divine Entity against whom she could never measure up?

It had been foolishness to believe William understood her after all this time. It had been naivete to think he would trust her decisions, even when he (or his God) did not agree with them.

Admittedly, God had not been present in her thoughts when she had administered the final dose. She could think only of the tortured young woman before her, the oath she swore to do no harm, and the realization that  _ harm _ was not quite so easy to define. It was  _ harm _ to leave a woman to languish in pain for all eternity. It was  _ harm _ to stand by and do nothing. 

It was  _ harm _ to withhold euthanization and she would not have been able to live with herself.

Now, it seemed, William could not live with her, either. 

The accusation of infidelity was unfair, although not unexpected. She had often wondered when William would let lose his insecurities about that part of her past, unwilling or unable to acknowledge his participation. They had not been physically intimate at the time - not for her lack of trying - but she had betrayed Darcy in every other way possible. With William. In her own mind, it was Darcy with whom she had been unfaithful. She had wed him and bed him, even while consumed with love for William. Her marriage to Darcy was the ultimate betrayal of William, both as a way to escape him and a way to punish him for not loving her enough. It would remain the greatest shame of her life. If William would use her abortion as ammunition, she knew this, too, would be in his quiver and he would take aim at some point.

She had not expected it to be now, when her defenses were so low. She had all but begged him to be her lifeline, to hold her heart when she was so very very lost. He had turned away and, when she believed she could not be brought any lower, he had drawn all the oxygen from her lungs with a few simple words.

_ It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve grown tired of marriage. _

  
  


Slowly, as the sun began to peek through the windows, Julia slumped across the bed. Her head aching, her shoulders stiff, her fingers chilled. The sheets still smelled of William’s cologne and she pressed her nose into his pillow, inhaling deeply.

It was then, finally then, that Julia began to cry.

* * *

He didn’t drink. He craved oblivion as he’d never done before save those first few months after Julia had left him for Buffalo, but he abstained.

Instead, he prayed. 

He prayed as he hadn’t since Liza lay dying. He prayed for himself. For Julia. He prayed for forgiveness and release, for guidance. He prayed until his knees were numb on the wooden floor, his knuckles white, his fingers numb. He welcomed the pain, begged for absolution, and wept for answers. 

Dawn took its time in arriving, and in the darkness William was forced to relive over and over the look on his wife’s face and he spoke those unspeakable words. 

_ It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve grown tired of marriage. _

He did not believe Julia to be unfaithful. Even as the cartilage of Dr Dixon’s nose crumpled under his knuckles, he knew Julia had never- and would never - betray him. Not physically and not emotionally. His actions had not been about Julia at all, he knew, but about the guilt festering in him for years over the part he played in the dissolution of Julia’s union to Darcy. William had been waiting for God’s judgement and punishment to arrive, as he’d never quite been able to ask forgiveness for what he’d done. There was no deity, no canon law, no commandment that could convince him that loving Julia was wrong. And yet he’d awaited punishment nonetheless. 

Andrew Dixon arrived and to William he was the harbinger of that punishment. He was the one who would awaken Julia to the mistake she’d made in wedding William. A young, attractive, educated, wealthy doctor who could share more fully the burdens she carried. Whose own religion was that of Hippocrates, just like her. A man who chased the mysteries of the human body to prevent death, not simply solve it. 

For William Murdoch, hell wasn't a fiery pit in the afterlife. It was the earthly torment of life without Julia Ogden. A torment he faced at that very moment, a locked bedroom door and a chasm of hurt between them along with the potential loss of something primal to the both of them. 

One another. 

  
  



End file.
